TBR Declutter! – Down the TBR Hole #34

I realised this week that when I was creating my “historical fiction I want to read” post, I was scrolling through my TBR and actually removed some books from the shelf without thinking! So this weeks “removed” number should be about 4 books higher!

Credit, as always, goes to the wonderful Lia @ Lost in a Story for this decluttering idea! I’m 300+ books deep into my TBR now… find out how many books I’ve removed, so far, below!

The aim is to declutter your tbr shelf. To do this:

Go to your goodreads to-read shelf.

Order on ascending date added.

Take the first 5 (or 10 if you’re feeling adventurous) books. Of course if you do this weekly, you start where you left off the last time.

Read the synopsesof the books

Decide: keep itor should it go?

Lost Souls by Poppy Z. Brite

Synopsis:At a club in Missing Mile, N.C., the children of the night gather, dressed in black, looking for acceptance. Among them are Ghost, who sees what others do not. Ann, longing for love, and Jason, whose real name is Nothing, newly awakened to an ancient, deathless truth about his father, and himself.

Others are coming to Missing Mile tonight. Three beautiful, hip vagabonds – Molochai, Twig, and the seductive Zillah (whose eyes are as green as limes) are on their own lost journey; slaking their ancient thirst for blood, looking for supple young flesh.

They find it in Nothing and Ann, leading them on a mad, illicit road trip south to New Orleans. Over miles of dark highway, Ghost pursues, his powers guiding him on a journey to reach his destiny, to save Ann from her new companions, to save Nothing from himself…

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This has got really good reviews but I’m reading the synopsis and it’s not grabbing me at all. Meh, nevermind.

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Gerald’s Game by Stephen King

Synopsis: During a sexual game that goes wrong, Jessie kicks her husband Gerald inducing a fatal coronary. Finding herself handcuffed to the bed in a lakeside cabin with no means of escape, Jessie is forced to face up to her desperate situation. Soon she begins to hear voices inside her head.

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OK, so someone ruined the story of this for me at work by talking about the film version on Netflix, but I still want to read it! Obviously – it’s King!

keep

The Woman in Black by Susan Hill

Synopsis: Arthur Kipps is an up-and-coming London solicitor who is sent to Crythin Gifford–a faraway town in the windswept salt marshes beyond Nine Lives Causeway–to attend the funeral and settle the affairs of a client, Mrs. Alice Drablow of Eel Marsh House. Mrs. Drablow’s house stands at the end of the causeway, wreathed in fog and mystery, but Kipps is unaware of the tragic secrets that lie hidden behind its sheltered windows. The routine business trip he anticipated quickly takes a horrifying turn when he finds himself haunted by a series of mysterious sounds and images–a rocking chair in a deserted nursery, the eerie sound of a pony and trap, a child’s scream in the fog, and, most terrifying of all, a ghostly woman dressed all in black.

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I actually bought this one already, and while I now know that Hill’s novels are slower, Victorian style ghost stories, so won’t give me big frights, I still want to read this novel.

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The Monstrumologist by Rick Yancey

Synopsis: ‘These are the secrets I have kept. This is the trust I never betrayed. But he is dead now and has been for more than forty years, the one who gave me his trust, the one for whom I kept these secrets. The one who saved me . . . and the one who cursed me.’

So starts the diary of Will Henry, orphaned assistant to Dr. Pellinore Warthorpe, a man with a most unusual specialty: monstrumology, the study of monsters. In his time with the doctor, Will has met many a mysterious late-night visitor, and seen things he never imagined were real. But when a grave robber comes calling in the middle of the night with a gruesome find, he brings with him their most deadly case yet.

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Hiissss. YA! Go away!

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You Shall Never Know Security by J. R. Hamantaschen

Synopsis: For years, J.R.’s stories have been acclaimed throughout the underground horror world. These are stories that challenge expectations and reject the staid conventions of the genre. These are stories that don’t compromise. These are stories that, in the finest tradition of H.P. Lovecraft, Thomas Ligotti, T.E.D. Klein, and Dennis Etchison, articulate what you’ve always suspected: that life is a losing proposition. For the first time, after much demand, J.R’s surviving stories have been collected in one anthology.

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I’m really intrigued by this… I love a short story collection at the moment. Underground, unknown horror sounds fab to me!

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The Shadow Hour by Kate Riordan

Synopsis: Nineteen twenty-two. Grace has been sent to the stately and crumbling Fenix House to follow in her grandmother’s footsteps as a governess. But when she meets the house’s inhabitants, people who she had only previously heard of in stories, the cracks in her grandmother’s tale begin to show. Secrets appear to live in the house’s very walls and everybody is resolutely protecting their own.

Why has she been sent here? Why did her grandmother leave after just one summer? And as the past collides with the present, can Grace unravel these secrets and discover who her grandmother, and who she, really is?

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I’m not really sure that there is anything about this novel that grabs me. I’ve seen a couple of reviewers say it’s more like a family drama than atmospheric gothic fiction, so that’s putting me off. Also, it’s giving me The Lake House vibes, which thoroughly disappointed me.

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Luminaries by Eleanor Catton

Synopsis: It is 1866, and Walter Moody has come to make his fortune upon the New Zealand goldfields. On arrival, he stumbles across a tense gathering of twelve local men, who have met in secret to discuss a series of unsolved crimes. A wealthy man has vanished, a whore has tried to end her life, and an enormous fortune has been discovered in the home of a luckless drunk. Moody is soon drawn into the mystery: a network of fates and fortunes that is as complex and exquisitely patterned as the night sky.

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I actually mentioned this novel in my ‘historical fiction I want to read‘ post the other day. Even though I lost the novel, I actually ordered a secondhand copy off AbeBooks.co.uk for £2 so it’s a book I want to try and get around to soon.

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The Last Night at Tremore Beach by Mikel Santiago

Synopsis: When Peter Harper, a gifted musician whose career and personal life are in trouble, comes to northwest Ireland and rents a remote cottage on beautiful, windswept Tremore Beach, he thinks he has found a refuge, a tranquil place in a time of crisis. His only neighbours for miles around are a retired American couple, Leo and Marie Kogan, who sense his difficulties and take him under their wing. But there’s something strange about the pair that he can’t quite figure out.

One night during one of the dramatic storms that pummel the coast, Peter is struck by lightning. Though he survives, he begins to experience a series of terrifying, lucid and bloody nightmares that frame him, the Kogans and his visiting children in mortal danger. The Harper family legend of second sight suddenly takes on a sinister twist. What if his horrifying visions came true, could tonight be his last…?

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I’ve been wanting to read this novel for ages! It sounds so good and unsettling. It’s one of those books I really want to buy now, but I’ll hold off until I have read more of my other stuff first!

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The Cutaway by Christina Kovac

Synopsis: When brilliant TV news producer Virginia Knightly receives a disturbing “MISSING” notice on her desk related to the disappearance of a beautiful young attorney, she can’t seem to shake the image from her head. Despite skepticism from her colleagues, Knightly suspects this ambitious young lawyer may be at the heart of something far more sinister, especially since she was last seen leaving an upscale restaurant after a domestic dispute. Yet, as the only woman of power at her station, Knightly quickly finds herself investigating on her own.

Risking her career, her life, and perhaps even her own sanity, Knightly dives deep into the dark underbelly of Washington, DC business and politics in an investigation that will drag her mercilessly through the inextricable webs of corruption that bind the press, the police, and politics in our nation’s capital.

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I think I actually have this one on Netgalley. I do like the sound of it but it’s not totally grabbing me. I’m sure I’ll get around to reading it soon enough.

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We Eat Our Own by Kea Wilson

Synopsis: When a nameless, struggling actor in 1970s New York gets the call that an enigmatic director wants him for an art film set in the Amazon, he doesn’t hesitate: he flies to South America, no questions asked. He quickly realizes he’s made a mistake. He’s replacing another actor who quit after seeing the script–a script the director now claims doesn’t exist. The movie is over budget. The production team seems headed for a breakdown. The air is so wet that the celluloid film disintegrates.

But what the actor doesn’t realize is that the greatest threat might be the town itself, and the mysterious shadow economy that powers this remote jungle outpost. Entrepreneurial Americans, international drug traffickers, and M-19 guerillas are all fighting for South America’s future–and the groups aren’t as distinct as you might think. The actor thought this would be a role that would change his life. Now he’s worried if he’ll survive it.

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I really love the cover of this novel but I’m not sure what to think about the plot. Some Goodreads friends have rated this pretty well at 4 stars, but the overall rating is average. I think I’ll give it a miss!

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Another 4 books removed this week, plus the other 4 or so I removed off screen! My TBR shelf is getting smaller and smaller, that’s what counts here! I’m now down to under 600 books.

Books analysed // 343Books removed // 141

How many of these books do you know and want to read? Do you disagree with any of my verdicts? Let me know!

10 Replies to “TBR Declutter! – Down the TBR Hole #34”

Definitely right to keep The Woman in Black. I think it’s Susan Hill’s best book (still) and it’s genuinely spooky. Film adaptation of it was good too (as was the previous TV version)…I nearly jumped out of my seat at a few points but then I’m a scaredy cat, lol.

Can’t believe you removed 141 books! I’ve always done these type of things on my Goodreads and Book Depository as well. My Book Depository wishlist is a huge mess of over 20 pages of books I randomly clicked, and it’s the hardest wishlist to declutter! 🙂